Article Sidebar

Trending

Article content

It seems self-evident that anything a musician or movie star has to say will be more interesting if they say it while eating spicy chicken wings. It’s fine enough to listen to the revered and famous reflect on the obstacles they overcame and the accomplishments they cherish — but if they’re screaming and howling at the same time, shooting mortar blasts of lemon juice into their gaping mouths as tears stream down their crimson-blushed cheeks unrelentingly, all the better.

It isn’t that complicated: If celebs want to prattle, we want to see them squirm. A 10-course spread of wings doused in suicide sauce does the trick.

Since its premiere on YouTube in 2015,Hot Oneshas ably demonstrated the curious appeal of the chicken-and-luminary format — and as it enters its 11th season this February, after 174 episodes, it continues to demonstrate that the appeal is strangely inexhaustible.

The premise ofHot Onesis almost absurdly simple. The producer and host, a reporter forComplex Magazinenamed Sean Evans, conducts a straightforward interview with somebody famous. As they talk, they share a plate of chicken wings; as the interview proceeds, the wings get hotter and hotter, making it increasingly difficult for the interviewees to answer.

Advertisement

Story continues below

This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.

Article content continued

Most of the interviews culminate with a reluctant, barely stomached consumption of the show’s own proprietary sauce — rated “2,000,000+” on the Scoville scale for judging the spiciness of peppers — and a coughing, sputtering paroxysm that entirely humiliates the interviewee before the audience. Needless to say, the more unflattering the reaction, the more exciting the interview.

Of course, decades ago, when journalists were still afforded generous access to the people they were interviewing, and when a long-form magazine profile could be the product of six months of work and several day-long excursions with a movie star or matinée idol, it was customary to liven up the mundane Q&A bits with some manufactured colour — chatting with John Updike on the back nine at Pebble Beach, say, or hearing Warren Beatty’s life story over Mai Tais at the Chateau Marmont. It would be difficult to squeeze a 3,000-wordEsquirefeature out of a 15-minute phoner or one-on-one in an Intercontinental suite, as most reporters are obliged to settle for now. But a few minutes on YouTube can be more than enough for a captivating conversation — provided the chat’s been furnished with the right hot sauce.

Advertisement

Story continues below

This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.

Article content continued

Short-form video content featuring celebrities built around a novel gimmick designed to provoke outrageous reactions? It’s not justHot Onesthat uses this consistently successful formula. Indeed, late-night television has been trying to reassert its relevance this way for years. What late-night producers realized, of course, was that a 90-second clip of a movie star doing something absurd, uploaded to YouTube in isolation and shared widely on social media, could be seen by vastly more people than the program on which it originally aired. And so now it’s all about stunts and gimmicks, transparent attempts to get a celeb debasing themselves to go viral — witness “Lip Sync Battles” on The Tonight Showor the ubiquitous “Carpool Karaoke” on The Late Late Show. It’s no longer enough for Tom Cruise to turn up and promote his new movie. He has to do it in costume, or in song. Or eating spicy wings.

Advertisement

Story continues below

This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.

Article content continued

It’s safe to say that celebrity interviews are only going to get more gimmicky, in theHot Onesfashion. (And you can see it already across YouTube:Wiredhas its hugely popular Google Auto-Complete interviews, whileGQgets actors to discuss their most iconic roles one-by-one.)Hot Oneshas already produced at least one ubiquitous viral catchphrase — Paul Rudd’s “look at us” meme, well beloved by the internet entire — and reams of reaction GIFs, image macros and flourishes that turn up everywhere.

You’ll notice that as people continue to talk aboutHot Ones, and the show’s profile continues to rise, it’s almost never the content of the interviews that’s discussed. There are no hard-hitting questions breaking the internet, and no revelatory answers changing how we think of such-and-such star. You get some good reactions. And, in this day and age, that’s about all you can ask for — maybe alongside some extra sauce.

Trending

Related Stories

This Week in Flyers

Article Comments

Comments

Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion and encourage all readers to share their views on our articles. Comments may take up to an hour for moderation before appearing on the site. We ask you to keep your comments relevant and respectful. We have enabled email notifications—you will now receive an email if you receive a reply to your comment, there is an update to a comment thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information and details on how to adjust your email settings.

Notice for the Postmedia Network

This website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. Read more about cookies here. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.